Category Archives: vegan

This week, I decided to change it up, and do my planning resort style!

• ask myself “if I wasn’t afraid of food, and could eat anything, what would it be?” Graham Crackers and juice

• I re-read my food log entries, and my blog side-by-side for a retrospective look at what I ate and how it impacted my emotions and yoga. I was not good at recording this week, and my yoga was mediocre.

• I re-visit the snack list
Last week I KILLED in this department!
– bread done! I tried at the office right after getting adjusted (which is the very best time for trying scary things) and had to work hard not to purge. I tried again at home, while more relaxed and still felt the same way. I tried a 3rd time, for breakfast, with lots of positive expectations about a normal healthy breakfast, and still felt horrible afterwards. 3 tries. Bread is off the table indefinitely.
– granola– I tried it. And hate it!
– musli– YUM!
– trail mix- calories, sugar, crunchy, and unsorted!
– hummus– done! Made it myself, loved it
– hot chocolate and toast- because it’s STILLa weird combination, bread, and it is 100 degrees outside right now.
– rice cakes with vegan butter AND vegan cheese– never mind. This my new favorite food.
– yogurt– done!
– Popcorn– DONE! Cauliflower popcorn = new obsession!!!
– Homemade granola bars- up until now, this has been too stressful a suggestion to entertain. I have a non-scary, granola bar recipe that you can expect to make an appearance later in the week.

• The last thing I do is check in with myself. How do I feel about the previous week’s eating? Yoga? Myself? And address any issues I’m having, before I start to plan for the week, because I like to go into the week feeling positive, excited, and motivated to make good choices and have good yoga. Last week I did not eat well, and I did not yoga well. I started keeping a star chart, with 3 empty stars on each day to color in for each meal. I only got 3 stars once. I determined that it might be the coffee, and not actually the food that makes me feel pukey after eating on the mornings. I also figured out that I really enjoy eating, but only while I’m cooking and I might do better to cook daily instead of relying on my jars so much.

My planning was much less structured!

I found dandelion greens at whole foods, which Gebi asked me to try a while ago, and bought them.

Laura had said a few weeks ago she wished I wasn’t so afraid of pasta. I eat miracle noodles… Or I fix them with veggies then feed the noodles to the dog. Eh. Whatever. I couldn’t be convinced to try regular noodles, but decided couscous wasn’t too scary.

I was really wanting salty things and juice, and muscle twitchy… In other words, I was having an electrolyte issue. So I got some coconut water and gave in to the juice compulsion

This one seemed pretty safe. There were 4 flavors. This one had the fewest ingredients and the fewest calories. Plus, I really love blood oranges.

Last night, I made a dandelion salad, with couscous and PURPLE! asparagus.

Um. Dandelion is DISGUSTING!!!! I picked all of the leaves out, and replaced them with kale… Then picked all the veggies out and gave Avery the couscous. Purple asparagus is amazing and delicious! It’s sweeter and less stringy than the green kind. Sadly, it turns green when cooked though.

If you don’t already know this about me; I never say “no” to Carmen or my mother, and this week Carmen told me I was going to try vegan ice cream.

THANK YOU CARM! I love it!!!!

Today, I made Graham Crackers veganized. And I did NOT use 5 tablespoons of butter! Can you say excessive!? I used 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, which worked fine, but they are ridiculously sweet. Next time I’d use wayyyy less sugar!

I also made soup!!

It kind of started as this but I wanted a broth soup instead of a thick one. I also didn’t want to see the parsnip, because they look like albino carrots with all the good stuff (aka color) missing. I added celery, asparagus and tons more carrots to the recipe, then boiled the parsnip, (some of the) carrots, and miso separately to purée just those then add back into the broth to make it creamy! It was brilliant and worked perfect!!!

Today was kind of rough, following my drunken adventures in eating like a normal person last night.

I woke up feeling like I drank too much.

Plus, fat, ashamed, guilty, angry, terrified because I didn’t follow the new food plan, and I don’t break rules!

I had an extremely hard time dealing with food and almost didn’t make any jars for the week.

I didn’t set up any summer porridge or fix any dinners.

I just made hummus

It came out pretty darn close to the real thing, definitely better than the weird grocery store stuff.

Yesterday morning, I made pumpkin, maple, tempeh cakes, and have plenty left still, so breakfast tomorrow is covered.

These were just ok yesterday when I made them, but after sitting in the fridge overnight, they were AMAZING this morning!

I steamed the tempeh (organic non-GMO, of course!) then put it in the blender with half a can of pumpkin and enough almond milk to get the blender going, then I added maple syrup- I didn’t measure but it wasn’t excessive, just enough for flavor, then applesauce for sweetness. It was very sweet, but kind of unexciting. So I added some chopped onion, crushed red pepper and pumpkin pie spice, which made for a really dynamic taste. Then I took the blade out and stirred in hemp, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, so they stayed whole, because I thought that’d look cute. I made balls and tried cooking in the skillet, but they fell apart, so I added coconut flour and baking powder then tried again. It worked, but next time I’d save the hassle and just bake them in the oven.

Remember, I said I had one more fun thing planned…?

It’s for goal #2 about creating more positive feelings towards food and while eating

POSITIVE AFFIRMATION STICKERS!

I also tried to bring the snack/lunch time anxiety down, by making it colorful and fun.

Celery, sweet pepper rainbow skewers!!

These look SO pretty in the textured jars!

(I stickerized the big jars, after taking the picture to show all pretty colors)

There was a lot of space on the sides, so I added a few sunflower seeds and 3 cashews to the big jars.

I’m working on the whole food thing. I’ve shared the goals created with the RD, and often discuss my jars. But I’ve never really shared an entire week’s food plan or anything about the process and how it comes together.

I am changing that right now. I think it will help my with accountability, serve as a valuable reference/benchmark in the future, and maybe, hopefully support, help and inspire others with food problems.

My jar system is no doubt a work in progress right now, but its fun, creative, environmentally sound, and perfect for me, in this moment. I’m proud of my ingenuity, and want to document this process as it evolves.

So. Here goes!

To review- the goals set with the RD

I was also given a solid list of snack/lunch ideas- many of which contained some element of fear foods to varying degrees.
• bread- this is a huge one, due to carbs, calories, processed-ness
• granola- close second to bread, due to calories, fat and sugar. It’s also crunchy, and supposed to go in yogurt, thus becoming a mixed texture which is my #1 ultimate food objection.
• musli- I don’t like it because I don’t know what it is
• trail mix- calories, sugar, crunchy, and unsorted!
• hummus- I actually love hummus… Just not the American, grocery store kind. Israeli hummus is amazing though. I’m pretty sure that had I gotten scraped while in Israel I’d have bled chickpeas.
• hot chocolate and toast- because it’s a weird combination, bread, and it is 100 degrees outside right now.
• rice cakes with vegan butter AND vegan cheese– never mind. This my new favorite food.
* yogurt- my issue with yogurt is not eating disorder derived, it comes from something silly that my dad said to me when I was little. I like yogurt, but can’t consistently eat it.

Last week I took on the rice cakes with butter and cheese. I ate brought yogurt to work. And ate yogurt at home.

This week, I am going to work on hummus. I spent several hours reading reviews from Israelis, of hummus recipes made with readily available American ingredients, and found one that’s supposed to be as close as possible to the real thing. If that’s true, I will be over the moon!

For breakfasts:
• continue with the cold oatmeal, with a side note to prepare more jars at a time, because no matter how much I promise myself I will I do not make jars mid-week.
• lentil brownies- I start with this recipe then:
– vegan-ize with coconut yogurt, almond milk, and half a can of rinsed black beans for the egg
– replace the oats with lentil flour (just run dried lentils through your coffee grinder)
– use 1/2 cup dates and 1/2 cup organic certified non-GMO sugar, instead of the white sugar
– I don’t use peanut butter, just because I don’t have a way to melt it.
– this week I plan to add some unsweetened coconut flakes to the batter, and maybe some chopped nuts.
• tempeh cakes with pumpkin and maple- this is an idea inside my head at the moment. I’ll let you know how it works out

For dinners:
Last week I did horrible in the dinner department and my yoga suffered immensely.
• lentil stuffed pepper- 1 jar left from this week
• chili- based loosely on this, using lentils, quinoa, and remaining black beans after making the brownies. Plus adding way more vegetables.
• Peanut Butter “pasta”- but on tempeh, and no broccoli because I hate it. But I’ll add other veggies… Whatever is around.

I am working on improving protein intake using tempeh, nuts/seeds, peanut butter, quinoa and almond butter. I italicized those items in my weekly plan. I’m not too sure about seeds…

P.S- I personally think lentils will be the next big superfood rage. They are ridiculously cheap, have virtually no taste which makes them quite diverse, and they blow quinoa out of the water in the protein department.

I’ve got one more amazing thing in the works for next week, but you’re gonna have to wait! 😉

Last week was horrible.
I read somewhere about “doing the next best thing”, which I took to mean, not so much opting for second best, but focusing forward and looking for the next opportunity to make the very best choice.

I didn’t plan anything on Friday. I tried, but couldn’t.

I didn’t shop on Saturday. I tried, but ended up crying in Whole Foods.

I told myself I’d do everything Monday after seeing Dr. J, and getting the notes from last week, and practicing. Of course, we all know that’s absurd. I can barely even be convinced to feed myself a pre-made jar when I get home at night, much less plan, shop and prepare something. So, really, I had pretty much already decided not to eat anything all week. MV was simply giddy, about this!

Then…

At 5:00…

My e-mail buzzed, and the notes came! I read through it, got to the bottom and… Had to SIGN it! It’s, like, a contract! Whoa! That’s some serious business!

Well, since I no longer had a good excuse not to, I crammed my entire weekend routine into one evening! It took me 2 hours to read everything and plan, 2 hours to shop and I spent 3 hours cooking.

Goals:

I really like the way the wording came out for #2, on the short term list. All this time, and no one has actually suggested that. It’s all very militant. I eat because there are rules, and I have to. It’s easiest while highly distracted. At home, I watch videos on YouTube. At work, I eat at my desk, instead of during my breaks. I never look. I’ve been trying to come up with ways to make it more positive.

There were a lot of scary things on the list, like crackers, butter, cheese/vegan cheese, yogurt, granola, bread and tempeh. I keep earth balance and vegan cheese at the house, and will use yogurt for stuff, but I never just EAT any of those things.

I had already agreed to try the tempeh, but it ended up becoming more complicated than I expected. I couldn’t figure out what to do with it! After hours and hours and hours on Pinterest, I decided tempeh is for, like, advanced eaters. Everything I found was complex, involved a lot of flavors and textures, or was BBQ, which I loathe. I am more of a novice eater and needed a simple, easy, isolated, introduction to tempeh. Finally, I got smart and googled “tempeh for toddlers” BINGO. Make cubes and brown in olive oil, season with salt and pepper. That. I can totally handle!

At the store, I decided bread and granola could wait for a while. I am trying enough new things and those are both really hard.

When I got home,

ready to go

I made the tempeh first, to get the hardest out of the way first. I used coconut oil instead of olive oil, because it’s fun to cook with, it heats up different than olive oil… Idk, some nerd probably has a nice science-y explanation somewhere out there in cyber space. I just go with what works. I tasted the finished tempeh and liked it. 🙂 I divided it into four 4oz jars to be snacks.

I also made

Avocado poppers
I cut half an avocado into cubes, dunked them in almond milk, then rolled them in some “bread crumbs” (lentil chips that I had run through the coffee grinder), squirted with lemon juice and baked in the oven.

Stuffed peppers with lentils and black beans instead of polenta, because I agreed to try eating more protein.

More lentil brownies, this time I used dates, less sugar and a different kind of yogurt. The batter ended up extremely thick and cooked up more like lentil cake than lentil fudgey brownie . It’s not bad.

Then, I was tired, so I didn’t make any more dinners, but I don’t really mind doing that during the week. I’m just not a morning person and don’t like to have to think when I wake up. Making snacks is new, and requires lots of thought, so the more planned, the better.

I’m excited to try some new things, and work on improving my yoga through better fuel this week!

I am paying attention more, and have started to notice a few things. All through my past two months of crappy yoga, I was rushing out of work, buying my nails through afternoon traffic, running into the studio with minutes to spare, squeezing myself out a spot, and diving right into class cold and stressed.

Today, I stayed at the office. I finished what I was doing. I checked my Facebook, chatted with a friend, drove calmly to the studio, when it when the doors opened, changed, set up in my favorite spot, and was able to start warming up before my friends started coming in… I get so distracted by people who love to talk yoga!!! I did about a million wallwalks- I always feel a little weird, because I am the only one who does them at this studio, and everyone always watches. But, my practice is SO much better when I do.

Everything is improving so fast right now! I’m constantly blown away! I’ve been all settled at my new place and my hips have been fixed for several weeks now. This sudden change has got to be diet related, I think. I have been vegan-ish for the past several years, but never very committed. That’s changing. Eating within the confines of GF, and vegan, whatever other crazy rules my mind makes up has forced me to get creative, learn more about the things I put into my body, and less afraid of them when I do. Today, ALLLLL day, I wanted Mac and cheese. But I couldn’t justify cheese sauce. And I still can’t eat pasta- not even GF pasta, because my mind is nuts.

I made this sauce (omitted butter, and used almond milk) out of cauliflower, tons of veggies, layered with lentils and quinoa, then baked. It was really stinking good, but a little bit of Diya cheese, would probably make for a more convincing “Mac and cheese” but it was really good this way too.

I keep looking littler and more angular and bony everyday, but I’m gaining weight… So I must be adding muscle, which is pretty cool, I think!